It is worse when that person makes you do crazy things. That is the effect President Barack Obama has on Republicans.

Progressives call this effect Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Vehicles covered in anti-Obama bumper stickers and homemade graffiti litter the nation’s roadways. Talk radio is full of ODS victims blaming Obama for everything from wars to high prices at Hobby Lobby.

Perhaps the highest ranking victim of ODS is Speaker of the House John Boehner. He is going to sue President Obama to get him to stop writing executive orders and start following the law.

“Too often over the past five years, the President has circumvented the American people and their elected representatives through executive action, changing and creating his own laws, and excusing himself from enforcing statutes he is sworn to uphold,” Boehner said in a guest column he wrote for CNN.

Like most conservatives, it is unclear if Boehner doesn’t know, or merely refuses to accept, the facts. Obama is really one of the executive order lightweights when it comes to residents of the White House.

Obama has issued 168 of the orders. That sounds like a lot. He has to be stopped, right?

In comparison, Obama is off to a slow start.

Nixon issued 346, Reagan had 381, George W. Bush issued 291 and his dad got in 166 in only one term.

Obama isn’t even in the top ten.

But Boehner is going to sue. Like most lawsuits, it appears that bad manners have caused more of a problem than bad actions.

Apparently, Boehner’s feelings have been hurt by Obama taking to the microphone to tell people he was issuing executive orders because he is tired of dealing with the most obstructionist Congress of all time. Obama even joked about it in response to Boehner’s threats.

“So sue me,” the President quipped.

Boehner saw that as a great idea. It is rarely a good idea to make a punchline come true, but Boehner is racing through the halls of Congress to get more friends onto his sinking ship.

“What's disappointing is the President's flippant dismissal of the Constitution we are both sworn to defend. It is utterly beneath the dignity of the office. I know the President is frustrated. I'm frustrated. The American people are frustrated, too,” Boehner said.

What he fails to recognize is that the American people are far more frustrated with Congress than Obama.

Like many of the efforts of the Republicans since 2010, this roll of the dice is likely to end up garnering support from the ultra-conservatives in the party and losing moderates and Independents who the party needs to win at the ballot box.

Page 2 of 2 - The biggest problem with the current cabal of conservatives is that they accept small symbolic victories and wave flags and celebrate them like the earth just shook. Boehner knows that if he can get 15 charges in front of a panel of judges, if even one of the decisions goes against the President, his mid-term mistake will be deemed a success and dark money will produce and publish campaign ads based on it.

Unfortunately, a majority of the voters haven’t been fooled by this tactic and his grand plan has a pretty good chance of falling flat on its face in embarrassing fashion. Do they really want to risk the White House in the open race of 2016 over a silly mid-term stunt?

It seems like Boehner is, and later this month he will ask the rest of Congress to join him in his fool’s gambit.

Kent Bush is the publisher of the Butler County Times Gazette and can be reached at: kbush@butlercountytimesgazette.com